Boise City Typographical Union No. 271 Records, 1890-1991

Boise City was scarcely a year old, and not yet the territorial capital, when, in July 1864, James S. Reynolds established the city's first newspaper, the Idaho Tri-weekly Statesman. Reynolds was a job printer as well as a newspaper publisher. In the Statesman's first issue he advertised "job printing of every description," offering cards and bill heads, checks, drafts, receipts, posters and programs for theater, concerts, exhibitions, way-bills, bills of fare, letter heads, receipt books, bills of lading, briefs and pamphlets, visiting, wedding, and "at home" cards, druggist labels, "in short, everything that can be done in a book and job printing office, from the smallest and most delicate card and circular to the largest size and most showy Posting Bill—and which will be turned out in a style that cannot fail to insure entire satisfaction." Reynolds, who came from Maine, reportedly had been en route to Idaho City with two printers and a printing press when the Boise City fathers convinced him to stop and stay in Boise. Reynolds thus became the first printer in the soon-to-be territorial capital.

By the time Idaho achieved statehood twenty-six years later, there were three daily newspapers in Boise, at least two other printing shops, and enough individual members of the International Typographical Union working in the city to form the nucleus of a union local. They applied to the ITU for a charter, which was granted in November 1890. There were eleven charter members. "Some were residents, but the majority probably were members of that race of 'Vanished Americans' now kindly remembered as 'Tramp Printers," recalled James Lewis in the local's 70th anniversary booklet. Indeed, Lewis could only find that only three of the eleven charter members stayed in Boise for very long. The eleven charter members were soon joined by seven initiates at its first meeting in December. The union's first known contract, dated February 1892, is recorded in its first minute book. Its signatories (the proprietors of the Idaho Statesman, Idaho State Journal, and job printers) bound themselves "to the employment only of persons eligible to membership in said Boise City Typographical Union No. 271." According to Lewis's 70th anniversary history, the 1892 contract was "the first agreement between a chartered labor union and an employer in the State of Idaho."

The International Typographical Union had a long history even before its local was chartered in Boise. Founded in 1852 as the National Typographical Union (it changed its name to International when Canadian locals were chartered), it was formally organized only after decades of communication and cooperation between printers' associations in Eastern and Midwestern cities. Individual members were drawn from large printing establishments, one-man shops, and itinerants ("tramp printers") who moved around the country working for newspapers and print shops for short periods of time before moving on. Originally the union included members from all areas of the printing industry, but gradually during the 19th century, members from specialized crafts such as pressmen, bookbinders, and photo engravers withdrew and formed their own international unions, often with the assistance of the ITU.

The early minutes of the Boise City Typographical Union reveal its concerns and customs. Members used white and black balls to vote on applications for membership. It was not unheard of for Calvin Cobb, the publisher of the Statesman, to appear personally at union meetings to make wage scale proposals. Union members were not immune to the anti-Chinese sentiments that were so prevalent in the West at that time; a resolution was adopted in February 1893 levying a fine of five dollars on any member "who shall have washing done at a Chinese wash house, or any member who shall be caught eating…at a Chinese restaurant or other place where Chinese are employed…." In May of 1899 the union voted to forgive the dues for two members serving in the U.S. Army; at the same meeting it agreed to a request from the Central Labor Union of the District of Columbia to petition President McKinley to remove the director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

The union contributed to local charitable causes and, according to Lewis' history, had already negotiated a nine-hour day, six-day week before the international union made it the standard in 1899. The Boise union then became one of the first locals to negotiate an 8-hour day in 1904. In 1900 the membership agreed to a special assessment for the aid of striking workers in Pittsburgh, but only "under protest" did it remove Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg (a printer and publisher whose younger brother Charles had been a charter member of No. 271) from its honorary membership. The International Typographical Union had asked the Boise local to revoke his membership because of his role in suppressing the miners' strikes in the Coeur d'Alene district of north Idaho. The local union complied but reaffirmed "its belief that the said Hon. Frank Steunenberg is a friend of organized labor." Steunenberg was assassinated five years later at his home in Caldwell, Idaho. The sensational trial of Western Federation of Miners leader Big Bill Haywood for instigating the murder brought Clarence Darrow to Boise for the defense and propelled prosecutor William E. Borah to national prominence. The Boise City Typographical Union adopted resolutions deploring Steunenberg's assassination at its meeting in February 1906.

Printers, who set type, formed the core of the original union membership in Boise, but they were soon joined by mailers, i.e. newspaper employees who worked in the "mail room" at tasks such as assembling papers, inserting supplements, bundling, and otherwise preparing them for distribution. In larger cities, mailers often formed locals of their own, but in Boise the two crafts were always part of No. 271. For much of the 20th century, the Boise City Typographical Union drew most of its membership from printers and mailers at Boise's morning newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, its evening competitor, the Boise Capital News, and the Syms-York Company, though members were drawn from smaller printing establishments as well.

Within its first decade, the No. 271's members were confronted by new technology and the necessity of job retraining. The linotype machine, invented to replace the setting of type by hand, revolutionized the printing process. Idaho Statesman publisher Calvin Cobb had asked the union to formulate a "machine scale" wage proposal as early as 1895, though there is no evidence a linotype was actually introduced at the newspaper until 1898. In December of that year, the union recommended to the publisher "that learners on the machines might practice on setting 'bogus' matter" in order to familiarize themselves with the new process.

Years later, the international union and the Boise local addressed the technological changes brought on by the introduction of computers, automation, and photocomposition to the printing process, but during the 1980s both local and international membership declined as the new processes required fewer employees trained and skilled in the craft. During the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, the number of working members of No. 271 (excluding retirees) hovered near or slightly above 100. In November 1977 the number of working members in Boise (not counting members added from the recently defunct locals in Nampa and Twin Falls) was 69; in November 1986 there were 43. That same month the voters of Idaho passed a right-to-work initiative, making union membership voluntary in all places of employment, further weakening the union. On the national level, officers of the ITU explored merger opportunities with other unions, including the Teamsters. In 1987 the venerable old ITU was absorbed into the Communication Workers of America. At its June 1987 meeting No. 271 ceremonially took its 97-year old charter down from the wall and replaced it with a new charter from the CWA. The Boise City Typographical Union retained its identity as a separate local within the CWA for several years until its remaining members became part of Boise's CWA local in the early 1990s.

Sources:

• Lewis, Ray. Highlights of Seventy Years / [Boise City Typographical Union No. 271]. 1960. Within the collection in Box 1, Folder 1; also Spec. Coll. Z243.U6 I22 1960
• A Study of the History of the International Typographical Union, 1852-1963. Colorado Springs: International Typographical Union. 1964. Spec Coll Z120.I77A65
• Scott, Daniel T. Technological Change and Printing Industry Unions, 1958-1983. PhD. Diss, New School for Social Research. 1986. Dissertations & Theses (online database)
• Gill, Thomas E. Printing in Idaho: A Case Study of the Boise Typographical Union and its Wage Arbitration in 1920. Student paper, Boise State University. 1986. Within the collection in Box 1, Folder 4
• Minute books and other sources within the collection.
• Membership figures derived from Secretary's monthly itemized reports (Boxes 18-20)